The act of stringing a racquet requires a considerable amount of manual labor. Stringing machines assist in the process by maintaining the racquet in place and providing desired tension in the strings, but a majority of the work involved is performed by a person. More particularly, a person must align the racquet within the stringing machine, and then string each of the cross or main strings individually, followed by weaving each of the cross and main strings to form the resulting string grid.
Those in the racquet stringing business often spend many hours a day standing in front of a stringing machine. Conventional stringing machines include a stringing platform with a turntable positioned on top of a fixed stand. The turntable spins within a plane parallel to the floor. Because of the fixed orientation of the stand and the planar position of the turntable, the person stringing the racquet must adjust his or her posture to conform to the position of the stringing machine. In particular, one of the racquet stringer's shoulders is often positioned much higher than the other. Also, the fixed orientation of the stringing machine often induces the racquet stringer to hunch over the turntable. The awkward posture induced by conventional stringing machines often causes injuries and fatigue, which ultimately lead to reduced efficiency in the performance of the racquet stringer. Additionally, conventional stringing machines typically include a vertical stand on a base. The stand and/or base can interfere with the placement of the stringer's feet and/or legs, leading to additional awkwardness in the stringer's posture.
During the stringing process, the racquet is clamped to the stringing platform and the turntable allows the racquet stringer to manually spin the racquet to adjust the positioning of the racquet with respect to the various steps of the stringing process. Turntables on conventional stringing machines are generally free to spin in response to any applied tangential force unless or until a brake is applied, with the brake preventing any further spinning. If the stringing platform were positioned in the stringing machine such that the turntable spins in a plane non-parallel with the floor, namely tilted toward the racquet stringer, the handle of any racquet clamped to the stringing platform would be drawn by gravity to the lowest point within the plane. Consequently, even though the positioning of the angled or tilted turntable may be more comfortable for the user, the need to either continually move the racquet back into its intended position or continually lock and unlock the brake on the turntable in order to overcome the effects of gravity on the clamped-on racquet would be a nuisance.
It would thus be desirable to provide a stringing machine that is ergonomically designed to allow users to work with the stringing machine without having to assume awkward or uncomfortable positions, and without having to continuously manually override effects of gravity on the turntable.